A Brief History of Hannah Shepard
by Ripley95
Summary: A slight background of Hannah Shepard, and how she finds out that her daughter is still alive after the events of Horizon.


**A/N: This was originally written as somewhat of a prequel to another fic of mine, called "Much Abides," which follows a Kaidan/Femshep mostly post ME3 romance. This fic is entirely capable of being read as a stand alone piece though, and you wouldn't be missing out on anything.**

* * *

Hannah's reasons for joining the military weren't very remarkable. She had been orphaned as a young teenager and her one and only aunt had graciously taken her in and cared for her after the accident that had stolen her parents. It had been easily apparent to Hannah that it was a struggle to support another person unexpectedly on her meager salary though. Hannah loved her aunt and appreciated her for every effort that she had put into raising her. She had even gotten to the point that she would often think of her as another parent even, but she had decided early on that the day she turned 18 she would join the Systems Alliance.

She figured it would be a good way for her to stop being a burden as soon as she were able. Her aunt would never dare refer to her as such, but Hannah couldn't help but feel that way. She had seen for herself just how much her aunt had struggled to keep them afloat, and this would be Hannah's way to show her own equal appreciation, and start being responsible for her own life.

The Alliance had provided a perfect out. Service would be a good way to start earning her own money as soon as possible, with no skills, as well as getting a free education with room and board included, she had thought. It helped that the naval forces aligned with her interests. Hannah had always pictured herself as a pilot, and figured she might have a knack for it. She had been wrong, but showed an early aptitude towards infantry and leadership. She had decided to stick with her strengths, and managed to go up in the ranks fairly quickly until she somewhat stagnated after becoming a captain.

With her reasons for serving being so unremarkable, it certainly hadn't taken very long in her career to suddenly feel very conflicted about ever having joined. At one point, it had offered her a better life. It had offered her skills and purpose, and even love. Something she had never expected to find. But it had also been the source of her greatest anguish.

It had been two years since service had left her heartbroken and desolate, and not for the first time. She had cursed her career choice more than once now. The first time was when it took her husband when Jane was merely eight years old. Their daughter was still vulnerable and suggestive and shouldn't have known what it was to lose a parent that young. If anyone knew that, it was her. At the time, she made sure not to hold disdain for the military purely for Jane's sake. It was hard to not show her sudden aversion. Harder than she had wanted it to be. She had lost her husband. The love of her life. The person that she was supposed to be sharing Jane's existence with, and she blamed the Alliance.

But service was the only way that Hannah knew how to be strong anymore. For Jane's sake, it was something that she had needed then more than ever. She had struggled, but found her purpose again. She used the military to be the role model that she wanted to be for her daughter. A strong and capable woman that should be proud to serve for a good cause. That drive was what eventually got her to the position of being a Captain. If nothing more, to have a safer position so she would have less of a risk of orphaning Jane, but it also helped to be able to show her that hard work got you places.

But then two years ago, for the first time since her husband's death, she was glad that he was already gone. This way he didn't have to live through the pain of losing their child. His absence had nearly destroyed Hannah. To lose your one true partner and confidante wasn't simple by any means. She had truly lost a part of herself. The person who encouraged her, and supported her, and made her feel whole.

Losing a child was different. She had lost all hope. There was no future. There was simply being, and she wasn't sure that was enough.

Two years ago, the military had taken all that she had left. It was a cruel joke though, because with the absence of her daughter, the military itself was quite literally all she had left. Again, if nothing else, she would remain in service for Jane's sake. To honour her daughter's memory. It felt right. Or at least it felt like all there was anymore.

Jane's reasons for joining had been far more noble than her own. Jane was raised with two parents that had fought for the cause. One of them giving their life for it, and the other devoting hers to it. Jane had never felt like the military had taken her father from her. She had always thought of it as the evil forces he was trying to help save the universe from had done that. That he had nobly made the ultimate sacrifice to save everyone else. That had become Jane's view of service. That the people who were fighting, knew that the fight was greater than themselves. Hannah had to admit that she hadn't been wrong, but it was far more romanticised than she was capable of feeling over the whole thing. Jane had definitely gotten that from her father.

When Hannah had first gotten the news of the attack over Alchera, her feelings on her career choice had once again been extremely conflicted. If she had never joined the military, she never would have had to live through any of this pain. She never would have met her husband. Never would have had their daughter. Never would have lost them so unjustly.

She had quickly banished that thought. The pain had just been too much to bear, and it wasn't making her think logically at the time, because that old saying is true. It is better to have loved and lost rather than to never have loved at all. It applies to your children just as well. She had been blessed to have known them both. They had been the best people she had ever had the privilege of knowing, and the universe was at a loss for them no longer being in it.

Admiral Hackett himself had offered her a promotion to Rear Admiral only recently. She had feared that he knew how much she was struggling to find her reasons for being there anymore. After she had thought about it long and hard, she realized that it was likely just an offer out of pity. Her reasons for needing to stay would yet again be for Jane. She would honour her daughter's memory the best way that she knew how. She would remain a captain, fighting the good fight, and doing what she could to convince everyone of the threats that her daughter had died trying to get people to believe in. She vowed not to join her family unless the cause was worthy. And maybe one day if she had truly earned it, she might reconsider that promotion if the offer were ever to come up again.

It hadn't been long after that when Hannah had gotten wind of some news that was likely another cruel joke. Or rather she hadn't wanted to put any hope into it. Emily Wong had reported to sightings of Commander Shepard on Omega. It honestly hadn't been the first time the "news" had covered similar things to this, but something about this one had felt different. Namely, the reports had usually come from the tabloids, or some third rate story wanting to mislead people with shocking headlines. But Emily Wong worked for a reputable company, and Jane herself had once mentioned that she had even become fond of Emily's refreshingly honest way of conducting herself and her stories.

She vowed that she wouldn't put much stock into it. That was, not until she had seen for herself, the interview with the deplorable al-Jilani. At first glance she would have been certain that it was Jane. Even with the glowing red scars now adorning it, that was still the beautiful face of her daughter. But then she saw the Cerberus colours embellishing the people she was with. There was no way. Not a chance in hell that her daughter would have joined them. Was it some cruel joke of CGI for propaganda purposes? Were they trying to lead some kind of recruitment drive by showing the great and honorable Commander Shepard as one of their ranks? If it was, she was sure to hire the best damn lawyers available to save that tarnish from her daughter's records. She didn't care what it would cost her.

But then, any doubt in her mind had left just as quickly as it had fabricated. Her daughter, most assuredly, took a proud parade rest, and solemnly named off every ship that was sacrificed but not forgotten in order to save the council all those years ago by her hand. She had stood up to Khalisah with tact and professionalism and showed her where to shove it with her words alone. That in and of itself was enough for her to know. That was her daughter, and whatever must be going on, she hadn't lost herself to Cerberus.

Hannah would find out what was happening one way or another. Her daughter was alive. That was a starting point. Now, how the hell do you get in contact with a terrorist organization? That was clearly going to be the hard part, and it was likely going to require some patience on her end. She had gone two years thinking her daughter was dead. No matter what, this was good news. She would figure out the rest. Starting out with calls to Hackett and Anderson to keep her in the loop.

She had very unfortunately not been anywhere near the Citadel when Councillor Anderson had gotten back to her that he had seen her for himself. He was confident in knowing it was really her, but she hadn't left any way to contact her. Jane had said that she didn't trust any lines of communication. Saying that she was sure that she was being monitored and had told Anderson that if anything important enough came up she would come see him directly.

It had been a bit of a blow to know that she still wouldn't get a chance to talk to her daughter, but ultimately it was reassuring to know that other people were as confident as she was that Jane was real. She had wondered on more than one occasion if she had just become delirious, but that was confirmation enough to keep her resolve on the matter.

Finally after Admiral Hackett had contacted Jane for his own matters, he had confirmed an address for Hannah to try. Of course Hackett had the entire Systems Alliance Intelligence at his disposal for him to find a way to contact her, so it was easy for him. She was grateful that he was willing to pass it along with even more validation of it truly being her.

She had probably written and rewritten her message a good thirty times before decided to stay more calm and collected. Despite knowing she would likely get through to her daughter, she had no idea what channels it was going to go through to get there, and whether they would try to censor anything, so she thought it best to keep things simple, and acknowledge that Jane was more than welcome to seek her out.

::

From: Mom

So I have to find out my child is alive third-hand from the Alliance brass? Where the hell have you been?

I figure whatever you're doing is classified, likely part of your Spectre operations. Just stay safe out there, and keep doing your mom proud. And sneak something through a secure channel next time.

Love,

Your mother, Captain Hannah.

::

It was painstaking, the amount of days that turned into weeks that she still hadn't heard anything back, but she trusted her daughter. Something was clearly going on, and she knew that if Jane had gotten that message she would find a way to contact her if she had the chance.

Three weeks since she sent her message and she finally got a call in the middle of the night. That was hardly a common occurrence, but it wasn't exactly unheard of for a captain either.

"Captain Shepard here," she answered, not able to hide the grogginess from her voice. It was followed by nothing but a moment of silence. Now this was something that was relatively unheard of. "Alright, this number's classified, and I'm capable of tracing where you're calling from. If you don't answer immediately, I'll be forced to report you and send the authorities."

The line stayed quiet for a few more seconds until she heard a faint whimper before being abruptly disconnected. Hannah knew immediately who had called her after that. There was no question in her mind that it had been Jane. She sat up in bed quickly and tried to reconnect the signal right away. A link had been established, but no one was picking up on the other end.

Her daughter had reached out to her, and she knew it must have been for good reason. There was no chance in hell Hannah was letting her go that easily now that she knew where to call. Secure channel be damned. She would leave it ringing, or keep calling until someone picked up.

It had felt like an eternity, but it must have only been another ten minutes or so before someone finally answered. There was no greeting, just more silence.

"Jane? Sweetie, I know that's you. Say something. Please!"

"Mom?" she asked, voice still faltering slightly, but steady enough that there was no audible crying.

"Yes, it's me. Are you alright?"

Silence for another few seconds.

"I'm sorry. This was a mistake. I shouldn't have called."

"Don't you dare even think about it, Jane!" she said with more wrath than that time she had caught Jane stealing a model ship from her boss's office. After she heard that she was successful in keeping Jane on the line, she had immediately calmed down. She wasn't anywhere near being mad at Jane, but she might have been if she had hung up again without an explanation. "I have not heard from you in more than two years. You let me think that you were dead this whole time, only to finally get a phone call from you crying. Please just talk to me."

"Mom, I'm so sorry," she said through her weak voice.

"You don't have to apologize for anything right now, Jane. I'm not mad about anything. You have no idea how much of a relief it is to even hear your voice right now. Please, don't go. Not yet. Just talk to me."

The silence was almost deafening as Hannah assumed she was trying to figure out where to start. She knew that being a Spectre came with a lot of secrecy, but secrecy is different than letting your mother believe you were dead for two whole years. But even having the chance to have her child back after believing that, she had already forgiven Jane the moment she saw that broadcast with Khalisa. She didn't care about the circumstances as long as it meant that Jane would be a part of her life again.

Hannah heard a deep breath before Jane finally started talking. "I really don't even know where to start."

"How about from the beginning, Jane. I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay," she said before pausing again. "Well, first of all, I'm sorry it's taken so long to contact you. There have been a lot of reasons for that, really. You should know though, that I've been unconscious this whole time. I only woke up about a month ago. I may not have been dead for the last two years, but it sure sounds like I may as well have been. At least for some of it."

"Oh, Jane," she said with a gasp. The signs that her daughter had gone through some form of trauma were evident with the newfound scars, but she never would have assumed it to be that bad knowing that she was now, in fact, alive.

"It's okay, mom. I'm fine now. I'm sorry I put you through that."

"Sweetie," Hannah had immediately tried to tell her to stop apologizing. Especially for something out of her control, before being cut off.

"No. Mom, please just let me finish," they were both silent for another moment. "I'm also sorry, because the other reason I didn't want to call you or even let you know that I was okay, was because I'm afraid I'm about to do the same thing to you all over again. Except this time, I don't think I'm going to be as lucky to come back from it."

"What? What do you mean?"

"It's a long story, and I'm pretty sure Cerberus is listening right now. I don't think they'd appreciate me talking about this on an unsecured channel."

"Well I honestly couldn't give a shit. I'm not letting you go now. Especially if you really are in as much trouble as you're making it out to be."

Jane only offered a small sigh.

"So you really are with Cerberus? Why? Is this about money? I donated most of your credits after they were passed on to me, but if this is about money we can figure something out. I have more than enough for us to live on for at least a little while. You know that I would do anything for you, right? I don't care what the repercussions are, I'll come get you with the Orizaba right now if you'll let me."

"You have no idea how tempting that is, but no. This isn't about money. This isn't really even about Cerberus, though I hate that it involves them. This is about saving humanity, and right now they're the only ones who believed me about the reapers. They're the only ones who are actually doing something productive trying to stop the collectors. They believe in me so much that they put 4 billion credits into putting me back together for this purpose alone. This is just something that I have to do."

Hannah let the silence settle for a moment before continuing. "For what it's worth, Cerberus isn't the only one who believes you. I never stopped believing in you. I know without a doubt that the reapers are real and are a threat because you said so. I've never stopped trying to fight the admiralty board on this every chance I get since the day I thought you died."

"Thanks, mom. With how much I've had to fight everyone every step of the way, you have no idea how good it is to hear anyone at all say that. The fact that it's you means everything though."

"I'll always believe in you, Jane. I hope you know that."

"I do. But you should know… we're going through the Omega 4 Relay."

"What?! You can't!"

"This is why I didn't want to call you. I didn't want to give you this false sense of hope. I didn't want to disappoint you like that. To let you know that I was alive only to lose me again so soon."

Hannah could hear her voice beginning to falter again.

"So then, why did you call?" Hannah asked gently, with nothing but curiosity and concern. She knew that with reasons like that, Jane never would have called her unless she had managed to live through it, not unless there was a good reason.

"Because I've never felt more alone," Jane, she said, finally not being able to hold in another whimper.

Hannah hated hearing that. Jane never cried. Not since she was a baby, save for her father's death. She had always been someone to let things roll off of her shoulders easily. This was serious though, and it was tearing Hannah apart inside that she couldn't just hold her daughter. She had never been one to need it much throughout her upbringing, and it killed her knowing that she wasn't able to be there the one time that Jane could have used it.

"I've woken up expecting nothing to have changed, because for me it feels like it's only been a month since Alchera, but it's been two years for everyone else. People don't trust me anymore. Everyone thinks that I was dead this whole time only to find out that I'm working for Cerberus now. I mean, even I can see how that looks."

Hannah didn't know what to say to that. Of course she trusted her daughter, but that's clearly not what she needed to be hearing right now. She opted to let Jane keep talking.

"Do you remember Kaidan?"

"The only man you ever felt was worthy enough to let me know about? How could I forget."

Jane was clearly not amused by her mother's sudden lightheartedness, but kept going anyway. "I finally saw him again for the first time since waking up. I tried reaching out to him before now, but his position was classified. I wasn't foolish. This is all still so confusing, but I know it's been two years. It's not like I expected him to be waiting for a dead woman. But I love him, mom. I thought we would -" Jane cut herself off there, not wanting to finish exactly what it was she had thought.

But Hannah already knew. Kaidan had given her a call a few days before Alchera, asking for her blessing. She never asked if Kaidan had managed to go through with it before the attack. That would have been too much for either of them to want to contemplate. And it wasn't lost on Hannah that Jane was using present tense when referring to her feelings. Of course she was, though. Nothing had changed for her. At least not up until now.

"I guess it really doesn't matter what I thought," Jane continued. "Not anymore. At the very least, I felt like I owed him an explanation. But instead of me being able to do it the way I wanted, the way Kaidan deserved, I end up running into him unannounced, Cerberus in tow."

"You should have heard him, mom. At first, he felt betrayed that I could have let him believe that I was dead. I don't blame him for that. I hate that I put him through that. I tried to explain about the coma or whatever it was, and told him that Cerberus rebuilt me, but as soon as I mentioned them, it's like anything I said before that didn't matter. All he could see was that I had become a terrorist. That I betrayed everything I ever believed in. That I betrayed him . I thought that if anyone would have known me… known what I stand for… it should have been him. He should have known that I wouldn't do something like this lightly."

"I don't want to be here," she continued, trying to hold herself together. "I don't want to be with Cerberus, but I have to be. He wouldn't even listen to why I'm staying. No one's taking this threat seriously. The collector's are taking human colonies one by one, and they're not going to stop. I just came from Horizon, mom. I've seen the evidence with my own eyes. Someone has to do something about this. Cerberus brought me back solely for this purpose, and I have no one to go through this with. Well… no one except Garrus, but I don't exactly feel like I can burden him with this. I have to be strong for everyone right now. Even the Cerberus crew seems more than willing to follow me into hell, but I don't know how I can inspire the confidence to go through with it if they all see me being a lonely wreck who doesn't know where she belongs or what she stands for anymore."

Hannah hated hearing that. Her daughter had been thrown into this whirlwind unwillingly and just after being on the cusp of death. Hannah had never met anyone more resilient than Jane, but under those circumstances anyone was bound to crack. Even her. Hannah was about to do something that she was almost sure she would regret. Parenting was a constant struggle of knowing when to hold on, and when to let go, and this circumstance happened to be the latter.

She was going to have to encourage her daughter to face almost certain death, because she was the only one who Jane could come to in this moment of weakness. Once again, the fate of the galaxy was being thrust upon her shoulders. This was just who Jane was. She would fight to the death to do the right thing, even if it came at the cost of tarnishing her name and betraying the only cause she had ever fought for until now, because she knew that her own life was less valuable than life itself.

Hannah was beginning to think that service might not have been quite as responsible for the pain that she had been dealt twice with the losses of her family. No, maybe it was pure strong headedness and determination. That was definitely something Jane had gotten from her. She was going to have to take the responsibility for this one, and she was also going to have to be the shoulder for her daughter to lean on, even if it was going to be the hardest thing that Hannah would ever do.

"You're wrong, Jane," Hannah finally said after her moment of silent contemplation.

"What?"

"You're not alone. You have no idea how badly I wish I could be there with you physically right now, but I can't. I hope you know, that I am alwaysthere for you though. And you still know who you are, and what you stand for. You've never forgotten. I know that more now than I have ever known it, because even though you have been thrust into this horrible position, you are going after it with determination and without fear. You've never questioned what your purpose is right now as much as it may have pained you to know it. You just do it because you know that's what's needed of you."

"And I know without a doubt that you will inspire the confidence to go through with this, because you've inspired it in me to know that you will get out of this alive," Hannah honestly wasn't entirely sure of this. She still had her worries, and would never want to be sending her child to death, but this was her time to inspire confidence, because it was what Jane needed. "You've done the impossible before, and I know you can do it again. It's in your blood. It's who you are."

"As for Kaidan, I am sorry about that. You'll just have to give it time. One way or the other, time is the only thing that will make it easier," She wasn't really willing to offer more on the subject. She had been in Kaidan's shoes once. She knew what it was to lose the love of your life, and if her own husband had shown up under those circumstances it would have thrown her for a loop to say the least. She wouldn't have blamed Kaidan for acting poorly in that situation, but she also didn't particularly like him at the moment, knowing he was such a large source of distress for her daughter, especially at a time like this.

"So let yourself cry. Let yourself be angry. Get it all out of your system now, and you'll be all the more stronger for it tomorrow. Let it fuel you. Know that even if you don't have Kaidan anymore, you will always have someone to come back to for as long as I live. I know it's not the same thing, but I will always be here waiting for you. I trust you and believe in you."

Hannah's own voice had started wavering at some point. She wasn't even sure when, but they were both sniffling slightly together over their omni-tools.

"I love you, mom," Jane had managed to force out. "I should go."

"I love you too," Hannah also managed to force out. She added, "You better come back to me this time," to no one after she had seen that the call had disconnected.


End file.
